Family is Tough
by Einsieg
Summary: Loyalty. Kinship. Love. These things mean different things to saiyans than they do to humans, seen through the eyes of a warrior culture. Gohan doesn't yet understand this. He's only 3 years old. He just knows his aunt is really scary. Even more scary than his mom on a bad day. Saiyan love is hard love, kid.


_Near-Earth Orbit, Age 761_

Out in the void of space, two long streaks of light cut through the darkness. Purplish in tint and trailing for thousands of kilometers, they move with a speed impossible under natural circumstances. They are on a course for a small blue planet, placed third from its host star in one of the North Galaxy's outer arms. At the tips of these physics-defying trails are spherical spacecraft. Only large enough for a single passenger, these craft were purpose-built for only a small number of functions.

Move fast.

Be cheap.

Keep the passenger alive at least one way for up to 30 days of uninterrupted travel.

Survive a crash-landing at thousands of kilometers per hour with said passenger alive.

These things considered, the craft was not the least bit comfortable, especially not for someone with a tail. Even with the tail wrapped around her, the occupant had to sit with her lower body angled forward slightly to keep the base of her tail from being wedged against the seat. For possibly the thousandth time in her life, she cursed the stupidity of whoever had designed the Attack Ball.

Lots of species in the galaxy had tails, some of them significantly bigger and longer than a Saiyan's tail. A Saiyan's tail is prehensile. Many others weren't anywhere near as flexible. If this damned thing caused her such misfortune, she couldn't imagine the personal hell any of those species were forced to deal with.

Anyun brushed some of her spiky black locks off of the right side of her face in order to see the orbital flight controls without obstruction. Aside from being rather short and thinly built, she was fairly typical as far as Saiyans went; unruly black hair that spiked out in almost every direction, face like a wide upside-down triangle, and completely black irises that couldn't be distinguished from their pupils. The hair on the right side of her head tended to flop in front of her eye, often making her think about cutting it. It usually wasn't bothersome, especially in a fight when the rush of air past her face would blow it out of the way.

She was still not entirely convinced this trip was even worth the trouble. Raditz and his damned obsession with finding Kakarot had worn thin on her, Nappa and especially Vegeta. For months he'd pestered Vegeta to let him go and finally bring his little brother back. For that matter, he'd also practically begged his older sister to come with him. She could understand his desire for them both to be there when they finally found the lost sibling, but he'd mostly just made her mad.

She'd finally caved in a few months prior, using the excuse that Kakarot, were he alive, would be useful reinforcement for a tough planet they were assigned to purge in about a year. It was all she could do to keep Vegeta from killing the moron. He'd more or less ordered the two of them to get out of his sight until he wasn't close to killing the younger child of Bardock. Dealing with Vegeta "Prince of All Saiyans" for any amount of time was infuriating enough as it was. She absolutely refused to have Raditz contribute to her frustration by pissing Vegeta off. Unlike her brother, she had moved on. She'd put the concern of a long lost brother behind her and focused her will to improving herself.

Even so, the thought of seeing Kakarot at last caused her a twinge anticipation, and an unfamiliar tightening in her chest. Maybe she did hope he would be glad to see them. But was she expecting too much, just like Raditz?

Maybe now the two of them could finally get some closure, and Raditz would be able to move past his obsession and apply himself to getting stronger. With so few Saiyans left, Raditz's weakness was almost insulting. In fact, it was _absolutely_ insulting. He couldn't afford to be so pathetic when they were so few. There was no room for weakness among the last Saiyans. There was just too much on the line. Hopefully, he would wise up and come to understand this soon.

If not... she would most certainly _make_ him.

With her atmospheric trajectory locked in and synchronized with the autopilot of her brother's pod, Anyun settled back into her seat and silently braced for touchdown.

* * *

Megalomaniac. Monster. Demon Spawn. Words like these were not uncommon things to be placed in the same sentence when speaking of the one called Piccolo Jr., reincarnation and son of Piccolo Daimio. In his own opinion, none of those statements were incorrect. He inherited many things from his father, not the least of which was a burning desire to rule the world.

But in order to rule the world, he had to do one very important thing; Kill Son Goku.

Son Goku... The name and the face attached to it filled Piccolo's mind with many emotions, the most obvious of which was hatred. These emotions came both from the memories passed to him from Piccolo Daimio and from his own humiliating experience dealing with the young Turtle School martial artist at the 23rd World Tournament.

The defeat. It still weighed on him. Not simply because it set him back on is path to world conquest, but also because it forced the demon to face the fact that he had failed. Failure, and for that matter _crushing_ failure, has a way of forcing even the most egotistical of people to reexamine themselves. More delusional individuals would dismiss failure as a fluke, a random blip, a "miscalculation".

Piccolo was not delusional. He was not his father, much as his father might have wished he was wherever he was hiding deep in the pits of the young demon's soul. Since his defeat at Goku's hand, he had come to understand this. Piccolo could accept defeat. Piccolo could accept failure. He would accept his own shortcomings. He would learn from these experiences and come back even more powerful for it.

_For if I am to rule this world, I must be absolute and free of weakness. By failing to accept my own weakness and not fighting to cleanse it, I merely increase the magnitude of my own failure._

Most importantly of all, he had learned the value of respect. When one gives respect to their opponent, they do not underestimate them. To underestimate is one of the greatest forms of folly. It will almost invariably result in failure. While begrudgingly given, Goku had earned the respect of the Demon King's son. He no longer saw Goku as simply an obstacle to be bowled over, but as a personal challenge. To defeat Son Goku, Piccolo understood that he had to first defeat himself.

For this reason was Piccolo meditating, alone, in a mountainous grassland far from civilization. He was centering his mind and body, focusing intently on himself as he floated in a seated position several feet off the ground, examining memories and deciphering them for insight on what direction his training should take. He had done such meditation many times in these last five years. This helped him come to understand both himself and his enemy better, and make steady progress since their last encounter.

But recently, he had hit a wall.

Insights did not come to him now. It was as though his mind was addled and fuzzy and he could not fully center himself in meditation. Something imperceptible seemed to be holding him back. Progress was little and infrequent. For the last year it had been like this, and Piccolo had grown ever more frustrated with himself. Another example of a personal failure. A deep wound to his pride nearly as deep as that which Son Goku had inflicted on him.

It didn't take much for him to make a basic correlation. Roughly one year ago was when he first began developing and refining his newest technique,_ Makankosappo,_ the Piercing Demon Light. Its invention had at first seemed to be a windfall for the Demon Prince, granting him a burst of confidence unlike any gained from progress made in the previous four years. Once the basics of the technique had been established, Piccolo had thrown himself headlong into perfecting what he believed would be his new trump card against Son Goku.

Why not? It seemed to be the perfect killing blow. Moving at near light speed and with a piercing force great enough to utterly defeat any Kiai, shield or energy blast any being on Earth could possibly create and still destroy a small asteroid behind them, the attack appeared almost unbeatable.

Except that it was woefully impractical. After putting all his efforts into refining and even developing on the new ki attack, Piccolo had only succeeded in bringing the charge time to at best 40 seconds when in peak condition and using _both_ arms to focus the energy. No new attacks based on its underlying principles had come to him.

Piccolo was not ready to call an _entire year_ of intense effort a complete failure. Impractical or not, _Makankosappo_ was far too powerful to give up on. But at this rate...

Sheer terror. Crushing hopelessness. Overwhelming insignificance. These are the emotions that suddenly barged into Piccolo's brain with the force of a falling meteor when a massive ki signature hit his senses. The son of the Demon King was on his knees gasping for air before he was even aware he had fallen.

"W-what? H-h-h-how could s-something like this exist?! It c-can't be real!"

The ki signature was impossibly vast, a dark shadow seeming to blot out the entire world's ki with its titanic presence. Over 30 _times_ his own strength, making absolutely no effort to hide and betraying not a single hint of concern over it.

And coming his way.

Piccolo did something that in every other circumstance would cause him nothing but shame. In an instant, he had found his way deep in a narrow crevice between two plateaus and dropped his ki to virtually nothing. He then strained all his senses as high as they could go without raising his power higher than the background ki.

He didn't have to wait long. He had to fight to keep his body from going into convulsions as the great weight of the dark ki passed over his location. The source of the immense power couldn't have been more than 20 meters away, the sheer force behind it making his body physically ill. At that distance, Piccolo managed to pick out something he hadn't even been able to detect before.

There were actually _two_ sources of ki. The massive one was simply _so_ huge that it had blinded Piccolo to its companion, which was barely one tenth its size yet easily three times as strong as Piccolo himself.

If it had just been the _subjectively_ weak one by itself, Piccolo would still have been decently intimidated, but not... not terrified to the point of fleeing for his life like this!

Mustering as much of his concentration as he could, the green warrior heard a conversation between the two.

"Could swear I picked up a decent power level around here! It couldn't have gone far!"

The first voice was gruff and angry, obviously frustrated. Mostly annoyed at what it probably considered a trifling inconvenience. Piccolo wasn't inclined to disagree with its opinion of him, nearly crippled by fear as he was. Then he heard the second voice, which mildly surprised him.

"It's probably just your scouter on the fritz, Raditz. You haven't had it checked in months. Mine didn't pick up anything."

Higher pitched, calm, smooth, lazy and almost mildly chastising, it was obviously a female's voice. Not one to make any assumptions based on gender and not even sure what gender even meant for beings other than himself, Piccolo couldn't really guess which of the two was the source of the huge ki. It was flooding his senses so much that he was unable to focus on the exact center of it. It was like staring into an intensely bright lamp at point blank range.

"I'm not so sure, sister. These damned mountains may just be blocking the signature. We can't rule out that he detected us coming and hid like a spineless coward."

"I doubt anyone out here in the boonies has ki radar, not on a planet with an average power level this _pathetic_. Most of the population likely doesn't even know what the fuck ki is."

Piccolo heard the crunch of foot above him. His breath caught in his throat. Ever so slowly, he turned his eyes upward. At the top of the tall crevice, he could see a small pointed boot sticking over the edge slightly. He could barely see a bit of the owner's shoulders and head from this angle. He wasn't completely certain but based on the direction of the voices, this was probably the female.

"Besides. It probably wouldn't have been Kakarot anyway, not if he knows what's good for him... No brother of mine will be a gutless worm and get off alive."

Trying to ignore the back flips his stomach was doing, Piccolo noticed that the person above him had an all too familiar mop of unruly black hair. Though not the same shape as Goku's and at least twice as big, Piccolo couldn't help but notice the likeness. It wasn't just that she had black and spiky hair, it was how similar the shape of the spikes were. Piccolo had seen lots of people with black spiky hair, but Goku's had always remained unique simply for the way it defied gravity and be the same shape no matter what happened to it. This woman's hair had all of the same qualities, but expanded to form a wild mane around her head and shoulders. He could also see some of the female's face, and the similarities only increased. From this angle it was difficult to see clearly, but she had the same overall facial appearance as Goku with a more feminine softness, the same eye shape, and though only partly visible to him behind a lock of hair, the same black eyes. The experience was quite surreal for the green demon.

She was wearing some kind of glass lens over her left eye. Red in color and occasionally flashing with small points of light, Piccolo surmised that it must be the "scouter" mentioned before. Piccolo counted himself very lucky that this narrow chasm was pitch black and the sky was clouded over. Otherwise, she could have seen him easily.

"But," the woman said suddenly as she lifted a single finger and began shouting with her voice enhanced by the force of her ki. "**Just to be su****re there's no one here being worthless excuse for a Saiyan, I'll give just five seconds to come out before I level this entire mountain range.**"

She began charging an indigo ki ball above her right index finger, and Piccolo's whole body froze up. It was all Piccolo could to avoid retching up all the water in his stomach when he realized with growing horror that the woman was most definitely the more powerful of the pair. The ki ball was barely the size of her head, yet it was already projecting energy great enough to evaporate a mountain and she expressed virtually no effort while charging it.

"Five."

What could he do? Should he come out? The ball was approaching the size of her torso.

"Four."

There's no way! She would kill him in an instant!

"Three!" she spoke more forcefully, with a rising hint of anger.

_You fool, she's already about to kill you and half this damn continent! There's no other choice!_

"**TWO!**" the woman shouted out in an echoing boom projecting her displeasure to everything within 30 kilometers.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

"...Ha?"

The ki ball that had by then grown as large as a bus suddenly shrank back down to nothing. Piccolo almost went limp with relief, but remained tense. He watched the woman turn her head to somewhere over the horizon and smirk.

"Oh what do we have here? You pick that up too, Raditz?"

"Hah! Yeah, a power level just over 300 somewhere over that way."

"Let's get moving, then. This place is boring me."

"What about that power level from before?"

"Not my problem. Whatever it was isn't even close to a threat. Now come on, I don't have all day."

In almost an instant, they were gone. Piccolo felt the woman's ki recede at amazing speed, once again blotting out her "brother's" signature as they sped off toward...

_Oh, no._

For the previous five years, Piccolo Jr. had kept a close watch on his rival and mortal enemy. Whenever it was possible to sense Goku's ki, Piccolo made note of where he was and where he went. For several years, Goku had barely ever left the location of his secluded mountain home where he lived with his wife.

Goku's ki was somewhere far from home. Somewhere out in the open ocean.

The woman and her brother were now on course straight for him.

* * *

Son Goku couldn't move.

One moment he had been introducing his darling 3 year old little boy to some of his oldest and closest friends after having missed them for so long, and then...

Then he lost his balance and was suddenly unable to rise from one knee. His heart rate went through the roof. He was being blasted with an overwhelming force of dark ki coming towards Kame House. His metaphysical sense was so overloaded that his physical senses became distorted. The edges of his vision had blacked out, sounds were muffled and distant and his skin was ice cold.

Krillin was even worse off. He'd immediately thrown up the entire contents of his stomach and couldn't even get off the ground. Master Roshi and Bulma weren't nearly as affected, fortunately for them. The Turtle Master could feel the energy coming and could tell that it was powerful beyond imagination, but his sense had never been that good or accurate. It just made him feel mildly nauseous. Bulma of course could feel virtually nothing besides an inexplicable "gut feeling" that something really horrible was about to happen. Bulma had tried to get control of the situation and focus on keeping Krillin from choking in a pool of his own vomit, but the young World Champion could tell that she was on her way to a full panic attack as well.

Gohan was crying and blubbering out panicked questions that his father was having trouble answering. Gohan could feel the energy, but he didn't understand what it was and didn't like how it made him so sick. He was very young and confused. He wanted daddy to make it stop. He thought daddy should have been able to do something about it, because he was daddy and he fixed everything. Trying to explain to his son that he wasn't sure if he cold make it stop... it kind of hurt more than the energy itself.

Goku grit his teeth and finally mustered the strength to stand. He scooped up his crying boy and was about to hand him off to Bulma so that she could take him and the others inside. That's when they arrived.

"Well HELLO!" came tinny and far too cheerful voice. "I don't believe my eyes! The spitting image of dear father, isn't he Raditz?"

Goku shakily turned his gaze towards the shoreline to see a pair of human-like forms touching down on the sand. Goku couldn't help but notice that they bore a strangely familiar resemblance to himself, but wasn't quite able to latch on to this notion. There was one tall man with an insanely long mane of black hair going all the way to his knees, and a woman with similar if much shorter hair that was a head shorter than Goku. Both of them were wearing what looked like black and brown battle armor with boots, wrist guards and black tights underneath. The woman's battle armor was obviously fitted for her feminine form, had much smaller shoulder plates and leg guards, and she wore what looked like blue padded leg weights. Both of them had glass lenses over their left eyes, which confused Goku. Why only wear glasses on one eye?

"I'd say he does, doesn't he? HAHAHA!" the tall one Goku guessed was Raditz let out a throaty laugh that didn't really sound entirely friendly. "I _told you_ I was right! He was here all along!"

"Yes, yes, Raditz." the female conceded with a sigh. "I _apologize_ for ever doubting you."

Goku put a protective arm over his son and asked, "I'm sorry, but do I know you two?"

The tall man snickered before remarking to his companion, "Does he know us, he says. Why don't you explain things for him, sister?"

The woman gave a playful smirk before casually taking a few steps forward with her hands behind her back. With every single step she took, Goku could feel the well of her ki shift with her like some huge lumbering behemoth.

"I am Anyun, and this is Raditz. We are your brother and sister."

Even half conscious and dry heaving, Krillin managed to raise his head in shock before hacking out, "G-Goku? You have... You have siblings?"

Raditz's eye twitched when he heard this insect call his brother by such a ridiculous name.

"Why yes, insect! His name is Kakarot, and he is one of us, a Saiyan! A member of the greatest race of warriors the universe has ever seen!"

Goku raised an eyebrow at this accusation. He was a naive young man, but not stupid. He could see the resemblance to himself now that they'd made the claim, but to say he wasn't even human? He wasn't immediately able to accept such a thing.

"I apologize but I think you must have me mistaken for someone else. My name is Goku."

As he spoke, the previously cheerful-looking woman's expression grew sterner. Her eyes ever so slightly hardened. When she spoke again, her voice was cold. Goku felt goosebumps all over his body.

"No. You bear nothing less than the exact likeness of our father. Your name is Kakarot and you are Saiyan. There has been no _mistake_."

"Tails." came a very tiny voice. Goku took a moment to realize it was Bulma and turned his head to her slightly, not quite letting the two Saiyans leave his sight.

"Uh... What was that Bulma?"Goku asked.

"They... They both have tails. Just like you used to, Goku."

Goku's eyes fully snapped back to his two "siblings", seeing that they did in fact have brown furry tails exactly like the one he once had as a young boy, wrapped tightly around their waists.

"Used... to..." came the voice of Anyun. It sounded tense and restrained, with a hint of disbelief. Goku warily looked at her face to see that here eyes were scanning him, as if looking for something. The head of the Son household felt a wave of nausea as the woman projected her steadily rising anger.

"Where. Is. His. **Tail.**" she ground out through clenched teeth, the last word released in a low growl that Goku had never thought he'd hear from any girl aside from blond Lunch or Chi-Chi when she's _really_ angry.

Goku, and everyone else present, felt their hearts jump up into their throats. Goku was especially frightened when he saw Anyun's brother go pale as a ghost and slowly back away from his sister. A sudden unnatural wind blew over the island and the sea waters began to froth like a boiling cauldron. She was on the verge of releasing her ki aura, Goku realized with increasing panic. With as much power as she had available, such an act would likely level the entire island.

"I lost it in a training accident!" Goku quickly lied, surprising even himself. Lying was something Goku rarely if ever did, but in this situation he felt it was the best option for keeping his friends from getting hurt. This lady seemed really upset about his tail being gone. Goku didn't want to think about what she'd do to Kami if Goku told her he'd removed it.

The woman was suddenly in Goku's face faster than he could even comprehend, hovering a foot off the ground to be at eye level with him. She had a very severe look, her eyes boring into his with intensity. If Goku wasn't completely inept at social interaction most of the time, he would have been able to tell how skeptical that look was.

"A... _training accident_... How old were you when this happened? Not in time units. I don't know what passes for a stellar revolution on this planet. How mature were you?"

"I... I was almost an adult."

The woman hummed, her eyes taking on an almost sad look. His tail would never grow back, then.

She noticed the crying boy in her brother's arms. He had a tail.

"Who is this child, Kakarot?"

She already knew the answer. She merely wanted her brother to come clean. She was already resolved for what she thought was coming.

Goku steadily answered, "This is my son, Gohan."

Silence. Raditz clenched his fists, but did not speak out. Normally he would explode and take out his anger, but he knew that posture from Anyun. If he interrupted wherever her thoughts were going, she'd likely beat him into unconsciousness. He'd rather not have to explain to Vegeta why he needed to be rushed to a rejuvenation tank after coming back from what should have been a trivial outing with his vastly more powerful sister.

Kakarot didn't know his real name. He had taken some absurd native name. The natives were apparently alive and completely unafraid of the spitting image of Bardock. He had a son, obviously some half-breed. He had no tail, and he was probably lying about how he lost it. The next leap of logic wasn't anything close to a flash of genius for Anyun. For any Saiyan, the deduction should have been obvious. She was upset, almost beyond words, but she she did not show it just yet. She took a deep breath in and out through her nose.

"I am truly sorry for this, brother." Anyun suddenly said with an unnatural serenity.

"Wha-?"

Goku was on the ground. He couldn't even remember being knocked down. His head was swimming. He vaguely comprehended the sound of Krillin shouting, then a loud crash followed by the one called Raditz laughing about something. He was calling them all worthless ants, or something to that effect. Bulma was screaming for Krillin to wake up. Master Roshi was trying to encourage Goku to stand, saying something about Gohan. Goku tried to place a hand on his son's head to protect him and...

Gohan wasn't in his arms anymore. Blind panic had Goku back on his feet in an instant. He looked up to see the woman floating a few dozen feet in the air. She had Gohan by the back of his little tunic, the boy crying for his father to help him. Raditz was floating next to them, laughing.

"No! Gohan!" Goku cried out. Completely outclassed or not, Goku couldn't help but forget his fear with his son in peril. "Just tell me what it is you want and give back my son!"

Anyun seemed to appraise the flailing child in her right hand with a mixture of disinterest and disgust. She used her other hand to make a lazy motion for her brother to proceed.

"Why don't you explain things for our dear brother, Raditz?"

"With pleasure." Raditz replied, a manic grin on his face. "You see Kakarot, you were sent to this planet as an infant to purge its native population."

Goku stared at his "brother" in shock and disbelief. Purge? As in, kill everyone?! And as a _baby_?! How could anyone expect a baby to kill the population of an entire planet?

"I... I don't understand! Why would you do such a thing?!"

"Because, that's the business the Saiyans were in. We would send our weakest newborns to specially-picked planets with powerless native populations as a cheap means of taking worlds that would be a waste of time for the stronger warriors. You were born with an absolutely appalling power level, so you were sent to this dirtball to toughen you up and rake in a nice profit once we came by to sell it."

Neither Goku nor his friends and old master could believe their ears. Goku? A space alien? Sent to kill everyone on Earth so the planet could be auctioned off like a vintage car? Goku refused to believe he had once been expected to do something like that. He could never go out of his way to hurt people!

"I could never... From as far back as I remember, I've never wanted to harm others! How can you expect that a small child will just run around killing defenseless innocents when left on its own?!"

"You know NOTHING!" Anyun screamed, a shock wave blasting out from her and nearly sending everyone below off their feet. "The lust for battle is a full-blooded Saiyan's most basic instinct! From the moment of birth, all Saiyans thirst for blood! And with a planet this insignificant, even you could have easily destroyed everything in short order!"

"To be blunt, Kakarot," Raditz said after he'd recovered his footing. "You're a failure, and you've brought shame on your family and you race! Either you're some genetic defect, or you had a severe brain injury. Either way, you have lost your Saiyan instincts. Your power level is still humiliatingly small even at full adulthood. You don't even have your tail! You might as well not be a Saiyan at all!"

"The most humiliating part, though, is this _abomination_." Anyun growled, presenting the helpless little boy. "You haven't just lost your instincts. You have sired a weak half-breed with some native whore!"

"Don't you DARE talk about my son or my wife that way!"

Taken over by anger and emboldened by the need to protect his son, Goku leaped directly at the Saiyan woman. He'd never been this angry at anyone in his entire life, and her dismissive smirk only fueled his rage more. He got within 5 feet before he was suddenly grabbed from behind, his arm pulled painfully behind his back, and then thrown into the wet sand below. When he tried to get up, Raditz's boot slammed into his back, pinning him down. Goku screamed in pain, unable to push his brother's weight off of him.

"GET OFF! GIVE ME MY SON!" Goku roared through tears of pain and anger.

"Hahahahaha! So he _does_ have a spine! Too bad its over some thin-blooded hybrid child!" Raditz taunted as his dug the heel of his boot deeper into Goku's back, drawing out more screams of pain.

Anyun glared at the crying child held captive in her hands. She so wanted to kill the wretched thing. It would be for the creature's own good, in her opinion. So many potential unforeseen complications can appear in hybrids later in life. The boy was extremely weak for his age and showed no killer instinct. If he displayed any strength or natural talent, she might not be so disgusted by it. But in its current state? Killing it would be a mercy, one of the only forms a Saiyan understands.

Yet... She could use this.

"We will give you one option to see your son live beyond today, Kakarot. Refuse it, and your son will die."

Goku clenched his jaw, his face down in the sand, and slowly replied, "What do you want?"

"We will hold the boy captive for now. We will return at sundown, more than enough time for you to make your decision. You will surrender and return to your fellow Saiyans. If you refuse, we will kill him while you watch, and then purge the planet. Either you leave with us, or your son and this world dies."

"But... I... " Goku grasped for words, stunned at the completely serious threat. This woman was far from joking, and even Goku could tell.

"I have an idea how we can make this even better, sister!" Raditz said, a sadistic grin on his face. Anyun curiously regarded her eldest brother for a moment and quirked an eyebrow before responding.

"What do you propose, Raditz?"

"I say we make him bring us the heads of 100 of these worthless Earth creatures! Starting with this pitiful lot he seems to call his comrades!"

"I... I can't!"

"Hmm... Slightly extreme, but I'm not opposed to the idea." she replied, coldly staring at her youngest brother. "He will need to ween himself of this worthless place sooner or later."

"Please, don't make me do that!" Goku cried out in desperation, hoping to see any sign of reconsideration from these people who claimed to be his family.

He saw none.

"Better do what she says, brother! It's the only way to get out of this with your little boy in one piece!" Raditz said, before violently kicking Goku back towards Kame House to punctuate the last word. Before he could even begin to get back up, the two Saiyans were gone. The sound of Gohan crying out for his father's help receded away as quickly as the feeling of his kidnapper's ki.

Son Goku clutched a fistful of sand and began to weep. His only son. Taken. Snatched right out of his arms. And he was helpless to do anything about it. The Savior of Earth had never felt more powerless in his life. No failure had ever hurt him this deeply. His friends were at a loss as to how to comfort him. Goku very rarely cried. It was so unlike him that the sight of Goku crying generally meant that something had gone terribly wrong with the world at large.

Goku's mind ran over with questions. How could those _monsters_ be his siblings? Why didn't they show up much sooner? How can they treat their own supposed flesh and blood this way? How could he stop them? Is it even possible to stop them? What is Piccolo doing here? How do...

_Wait... What?_

Piccolo was standing right there. Goku had been so consumed by his grief that he hadn't even noticed him approach. The green demon's expression was much sterner than Goku remembered. During the 23rd World Tournament, Goku recalled Piccolo being a lot more smug.

The air of smugness was long gone, replaced by a grim seriousness and a hint of anxiety.

"We need to talk." Piccolo said, simply.

* * *

_**A/N**_:

Introducing a significantly more powerful villain right off the bat was meant to be a harsh wake-up call for the Z-Fighters. One of the reasons I think Goku's friends were so ill-prepared for the arrival of Vegeta was because they didn't have the true scale of disadvantage conveyed to them. They had some nebulous concept that the elite saiyans were "really powerful", but they had no idea just how powerful until they showed up. Anyun's first reason for existence is to get it into their heads just how much they need to step up their game.

I'm going with Anyun being only a year and a half older than Raditz.

Don't expect very frequent updates. This idea only came to me over the course of a couple days, so at the moment I haven't planned very far ahead.


End file.
